Starter Kit. Idea 490 of 500. Cluster 27
Technical colleges in Jaffna and Batticaloa funded by families abroad, with the employers at the table
The mechanism, from the book
The land, the lagoons and the savings of families abroad are waiting. What comes first is the small business.
The first step
Ask the managers of 5 employers in Jaffna or Batticaloa which skilled roles they cannot fill, and how many people they would hire next year if trained ones existed. Write down each answer. Take the list to a Sri Lankan association abroad and ask whether its members would fund one short course in the most-wanted trade. An employer's written promise to interview graduates is the proof that matters.
- Who pays first
- A Sri Lankan association abroad that wants its giving to produce jobs rather than buildings, and funds a course because an employer has promised to hire from it.
- What leaves today
- Young people in the north and east leave to find skills and work elsewhere, while local employers bring in trained workers from outside.
Ask first
- Tertiary and Vocational Education Commission. Ask how a technical college is registered and its courses recognised.
- Department of the Registrar of Companies. Ask how families abroad can fund a college through a registered body.
Check before you spend
Confirm the college's registration and course recognition, written commitments from employers on places and pay, and how donated money is accounted for.
Find out these three numbers
- Which skilled roles can employers not fill now?
- How many trained people would they hire next year?
- What does training one student cost for a year?
A comparison from the book
Switzerland. Chapter Fourteen
"The apprentice signs a contract with a real company, works and earns 3 or 4 days a week"
Put the employer at the table from day one, so every course ends in a job.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.